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National to
Local: Is your Council wasting land?
20 August 2006
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Preventing
unnecessary new building in the countryside is one of CPRE
Buckinghamshire's goals. Re-using previously developed land
("brownfield" land),
usually in towns, for
new housing or workspaces, is
one way of achieving this.
Because local authorities make the decisions
about exactly where new development takes place, they have targets for
the amount of new housing allocated to brownfield sites. The Government's target is 60%, though CPRE believe this could be higher.
Official figures show wide differences across England in the amount of
housing
local authorities allocate to brownfield. These were
highlighted in a news
release from CPRE national office on 9 August.
Figures for councils in the CPRE Buckinghamshire area are in the table below.
Proportion of total planning permissions for new housing given by housing on brownfield land
| Council |
2003/4
actual |
2004/5
actual |
2005/6
target |
2005/6
actual |
2006/7
target |
2007/8
target |
2008/9
target |
Aylesbury
Vale |
60 |
45 |
28 |
66 |
57 |
50 |
47 |
Chiltern
|
98 |
98 |
94 |
100 |
94 |
94 |
94 |
Milton
Keynes |
19 |
16 |
20 |
14 |
22 |
16 |
17 |
South
Bucks |
86 |
99 |
86 |
92 |
86 |
86.5 |
87 |
Wycombe
|
96 |
95 |
90 |
94 |
91 |
91 |
91 |
Source: Local authorities' Annual Performance Reports
The three councils in the southern part of the county - Chiltern, South Bucks, Wycombe -
have made good use of brownfield land. Not all previously
developed land is suitable for housing, and in areas with a high
proportion of land in Green Belt or AONB protected land, councils are
concerned not to lose sites for employment by allocating them to
housing use. Despite that constraint, the Councils have achieved
high scores - which might indicate that when planners have to work
within tight limits on space, they can find ways of delivering beneficial
results.
As a new city, Milton Keynes has
a relatively small amount of brownfield land on which to build, and
the figures are understandably well below the Government's
target. But in view of the Milton Keynes Partnership's growth
strategy which proposes substantial building on greenfield land in
Aylesbury Vale and in Bedfordshire, we need to press for better use of
land within the MK
boundaries.
Aylesbury Vale also
faces major new housing development. But the Council's track
record on using brownfield sites is not inspiring - the relatively high
figure for 2005/06 is, on the Council's own admission, down to an
"unusually high" number of completions on brownfield sites compared
with a lower number on greenfield sites. Targets for subsequent
years are below even the modest Government target. To some
extent, the figures are unfair to the Council, because the amount of
new housing in the pipleline is disproportionately high in relation to
the brownfield available - and some of the brownfield is likely to be
retained for non-housing use as part of a balanced development
framework. But, given the Council's record, we will be looking
very hard indeed at the draft land use plans coming forward under the
Local Development Framework.
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See CPRE's national policy statement on brownfield land |
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